Canterlot,

Central Equestria

The pair of stallions—or, rather, a stallion and a colt who stood half a hoof taller than him—came up to the door of an obvious quite upscale townhome on the capitol’s north side. The two of them had left their cart at an open air market next to a rather shocked looking fruit vendor before making their way to one of Canterlot’s more affluent neighborhoods.

“Relax,” Cravat said to the colt who was looking around a little nervously at the well-to-do homes. “I live here.”

This wasn’t, strictly speaking, true. While this was a home that was owned by his family, it wouldn’t be accurate to any real degree to say that any of his family ‘lived’ there. Out of a year, his mother might spend a total of a month or two in the townhome for a few days or a week at a time. Mostly whenever something was being debated in the Noble Stable that was too important to trust to a proxy. Or when there was something very important going on.

Like the prospect of a war with a neighboring country.

The dappled gray stallion rapped a hoof on the door. Less than a minute later, it opened to reveal an old pale purple unicorn mare with her ashen-hued mane tied up in a tight bun wearing a simple blue blazer and black bowtie. The mare blinked startled sapphire eyes as she beheld who was at the door. Then a heartbeat later the initial quizzical frown on her face was replaced by pleasant surprise.

“Master Cravat!” The older mare executed a hasty bow of her head before continuing. “To what do we owe the pleasure?” Only then did the mare seem to realize that the stallion wasn’t alone and turned to regard Mesmet. “And you’ve brought a guest?”

“Lavender, I would like to preface, before I say anything further, that I am not trying to be rude…” Cravat was barely aware of the sharp turn of the head from the colt beside him and the horse’s shocked expression. He was even less consciously aware that he’d almost immediately slipped back into the Old Canterlot accent that he’d actually worked quite hard to lose after he’d enlisted in the cavalry. It drew a lot of attention and was fresh fodder for ridicule from other Cavalry members, after all. “...but I do not have the luxury of time to answer your questions right now. Later, perhaps; circumstances permitting. But for right now, I require only compliance with my instructions and answers to my own queries.

“Again, I do apologize; but there simply isn't time to sate your curiosity. Not tonight." the stallion offered a wan smile.

The older purple mare’s lips briefly creased back into a frown, but then she bowed her head once more and schooled her features to be more neutral. “Of course, Master Cravat. How may I assist?”

“I assume Mother retained my room here?”

“The Dutchess ordered that your quarters be maintained just as you had left them; yes, Master Cravat.”

“And the papers? Are they still here, or did Mother return them to the Green Hills estate?”

This time the stallion’s question provoked a raised brow from the unicorn mare. It was obvious that there were questions she wanted to ask him, now more than ever. But, in accordance with his earlier instructions, she simply answer the question asked. “...They are in The Dutchess’ study. I can get to them,” she added, correctly anticipating what the dappled pony’s follow-up question would have been.

Cravat nodded before letting out a resigned sigh. “I’ll need them, along with an appropriate set of clothes.” He briefly eyed the colt next to him. “Is Stoic on staff? I’ll be borrowing one of his suits for my companion as well. But first…baths. I’d like some baths drawn up for us. It’s been…quite the week.”

The purple unicorn did not look wholly thrilled about everything she had been asked or told to do, but she voiced no objections. Instead, she merely nodded and stepped out the doorway to allow the two new arrivals to enter. “Of course, Master Cravat. I’ll see that it’s all done.”

“Oh, and one other thing,” Cravat said as he paused in the threshold. “Some time in the next few days, the Bank of Ponyville will be sending over a demand for payment on a line of credit in my name. It is legitimate. Tell Mother that it is my price for tonight.”

Another eyebrow raise without remark. Though there was the added addition of a wry smile tugging at the corner of the head of the household staff’s muzzle. “...Very well, Master Cravat. Would you like some refreshments while the baths are drawn?”

“Burbon for me; and an apple juice for Mesmet.”

An hour later, Cravat was regarding himself in a mirror in his room as a pegasus mare made some final adjustments to his suit. His dappled coat was the cleanest it had been in months and shone in the light. His nostrils twitched slightly at the scent of the perfumed soaps that had been used. His hooves had been professionally lacquered for the first time in years. Not nearly as much was different about his mane though, as its short-cropped military nature hadn’t allowed for much to be done to it.

Mesmet was standing off to the side fidgeting in his own borrowed clothes. The colt had never worn something like it before and was obviously finding the fit quite restrictive and uncomfortable. Cravat recalled how he’d felt the same during the first few occasions where his parents had brought him along to formal functions. Truth be told, he still felt uncomfortable in them. He'd just gotten better at controlling his fidgeting in public.

His gaze wandered from the mirror to the nearby study. Specifically, the two scrolls that were sitting atop it. Though they were both bound and sealed with green wax stamped with the sigil of the House of Medicas, he already knew what they said. He’d been present when his mother had written them.

One was his Patent of Nobility: a formal declaration by his mother that Cravat was her true and legal heir to her House and her titles. The other scroll contained a Petition for Admittance: a request to be presented to the Noble Stable which asked that Cravat be allowed to take his seat among them as a Peer of the Realm.

He’d watched his mother write those documents. He’d watched her seal them. Then he’d left to find a recruiter for the Cavalry and enlisted.

His mother had…not taken it well. There’d been letters. A lot of them. He’d responded to none of them for a long time. After a while, the letters had finally stopped coming. About a year into his service, he’d received one more letter from his mother. Unlike those before it, it had not been a page filled with admonishment. In fact, it had actually been quite short. Perhaps the shortest letter the mare had ever written in her life. It hadn’t even contained her formal list of titles above her signature at the bottom. There hadn’t even been a signature. Not of the sort she’d always used before in her letters, even her personal ones to him.

The scroll had simply read: ‘Will I ever see you again? -Mom’

To that letter, Cravat had finally replied. He’d reiterated all of the things that he’d told her to her face more than a year prior, but knew she hadn’t actually heard. Hoping that, maybe now, she was ready to listen, if not fully understand. He’d explained his need for time, to feel like he’d been able to do one thing for himself in his life. He’d assured his mother that, yes, he would be returning. Eventually.

He’d also apologized, because he knew that he should. Because, after spending a year living with ponies who were not wealthy or nobly born, ponies who spent their off hours dreaming of what he’d tossed aside—if only briefly—he did recognize on some level how immature he’d been about the whole affair. He didn’t go so far as to suggest he regretted what he’d done; but admitted that it could have been handled differently.

Cravat had known he would come back. That he’d be standing right where he was now. Someday. In his mind, that day had been a lot further off in the future. He still had a fair bit more time remaining on his enlistment contract, after all.

That wouldn’t be the case after tonight. He couldn’t be a benched member of the Noble Stable and an enlisted pony in the Cavalry at the same time. And while he knew that this was important—in so many ways—he still found himself feeling reluctant to go through with it.

He’d liked the Cavalray—or, rather, he liked his friends in it. His ‘found family’, after a fashion. Ponies who hadn’t been a bunch of nobly-born sycophants just trying to manipulate him for additional favors and power, like so many others he’d known in his life. He’d made genuine friends in the Cavalry. Far too many of them were dead now, but he still carried the memories of what it had been like to have them in his life.

Now he was going to have to leave it behind.

As far as ‘sacrifices’ went, Cravat fully recognized that it wasn’t objectively much of one. He was trotting back into a life of privilege and comfort. He was presently standing in a quite nice home—one of several his family maintained all across Equestria—drinking expensive alcohol and being dressed by a servant. What he was ‘giving up’ was just his juvenile act of rebellion.

Flashover would tell me to cry myself a river, and then to get over it and the rest of my bullshit, the dappled pony mused to himself with a snort.

The pegasus mare finally stopped teasing at his coat and stepped aside. “Is that suitable, My Lord?”

Cravat barely even looked at the mirror as he nodded. He didn’t honestly care if he looked perfect for his debut to the Noble Stable. He wasn’t going to be making a lot of friends in the Peerage tonight with the antics he was about to pull anyway. If anything, he’d end up making at least one political enemy. Objectively a horrible way to start one's tenure in the Stable. There was no amount of teasing at the length of his jacket cuffs that was going to make up for that.

Instead, his eyes went to the clock. It was time for them to leave, regardless of how presentable the two of them were. “Yes, thank you.” He moved to the study and collected the pair of scrolls, slipping them into a supple leather case for Mesmet to carry. “It’s time to go,” he informed the colt. The young Saddle Arabian nodded, slung the carrying strap for the case over his shoulder, and followed the stallion out of the room, through the front door, and off towards the palace.

“Well that didn’t take long…” Corsair mumbled under her breath as she watched the squad of gold-plated Canterlot Guards make their way along the avenue, stopping to question every citizen they passed. A couple of them were carrying around photographs in their wings or magic that they showed to any pony they stopped. Corsair briefly caught a glimpse of one of the images and instantly recognized herself, posed with a flat expression in her dress whites. The sash across her chest was the wrong color, suggesting that it wasn’t a recent picture. Likely a copy of the photo that had been submitted along with her professional record when she was being considered for her promotion to captain.

The pegasus mare’s lips curled into an amused smile as she considered the age of the photo that was being used to identify her. Her gaze darted behind her, further back into the little alley. “Is your file photo an oil painting?” She inquired, an amused glint in her eyes in spite of the apparent direness of their situation. “Or did they have deg…degger,” Her muzzle scrunched up into a frown as she struggled to recall the word she wanted. “Deg-something. Those old silver photos that weren’t actually ‘photos’.”

She initially received a final, shuddering heave in reply. Like the last few from the older mare, nothing further made its way into the dumpster beyond another muttered oath to The Heart not to leave the ground again. Shillelagh spat out the last of the bile in her mouth and wiped her hoof across her muzzle before finally responding with words. “I know what you’re talking about, ma’am; and no. Crystal ponies use prisms that are magically enchanted to hold an image. High-end ones can retain a three-dimensional likeness.”

“Huh.”

Both mares now peered at the group of Royal Guards making their way through the public. “I didn’t expect them to actually make this easy for us,” Shillelagh noted, her lip cocked in a wry smile. “How widely do you think they’ve circulated the photos?”

“Only one way to find out.”

The cobalt pegasus jerked her head in a signal for her senior noncom to follow her. The two ponies walked calmly back down the alley, away from the guard patrol, and out onto the main street at the other end. The sun was just settling on the western horizon, signaling that the work day was at an end. Many of the capital’s shopkeepers were either already shuttering their storefronts or working on nudging the last of the day’s customers out the door so they could close up and make their own ways home. The city’s main thoroughfares were just about clogged with ponies meandering home or going out on the town for a nice dinner. With all of the hooftraffic about, nopony reacted to the two wanted fugitives trotting in their midsts.

Not at first anyway.

It started with the sound of a glass tipping over beside Corsair as she passed a table where a green unicorn stallion had been sitting. Out of the corner of the pegasus mare’s eye, she saw the diner gaping at her, seemingly oblivious to the water that he’d just spilled over his daisy sandwich. She was not 'pretty', but Corsair liked to think of herself as having passably 'pleasant' features; though she certainly never touched them up with makeup or glitter like some mares did. Cavalry regulations aside, she'd never learned to use the stuff properly anyway. Likewise, while she was not svelte in her build, the pegasus kept herself fit with plenty of exercise. There was some extra bulk in places where no model featured on the cover of a magazine would have any, but all of it was well-sculpted—in her opinion, anyway.

All of that to say, that while she knew that she was not 'ugly'—and perhaps even had qualities that some might find genuinely attractive—the pegasus did not appraise herself as possessing a ‘head-turning’ level of beauty. So, unless this unicorn simply had some very particular tastes in mares, Corsair considered it highly unlikely that he was staring because he’d been ‘struck senseless by her beauty’. But there were certainly other reasons that she could think of that she’d have caught his attention so fully.

The green unicorn finally managed to get over his shock and averted his eyes from the pegasus. Mostly. He kept glancing at Corsair, just long enough to make sure he knew where she was, before quite pointedly pretending that he hadn’t noticed her. His horn glowed as the stallion fumbled to extract some bits from his bag and tossed them onto the table next to his ruined sandwich before getting out of his chair far too quickly. From the number of bits he’d just paid, either that sandwich had been made using some variety of exceptionally rare and tasty daisy which went for a premium on the open market, or he’d had things on his mind that he considered more immediately pressing than the cost of his meal while making his hasty retreat.

“You good for a run, Shelly?” Corsair murmured out of the side of her mouth as she surreptitiously watched the stallion bump and stumble his way down the sidewalk…right towards a trio of gold-plated ponies standing on a street corner.

The crystal mare masked her own look in the retreating unicorn’s direction by acting like she was relieving some tightness in her neck. Her own lips pulled into a thin smile when she recognized what her commanding officer had. The elder emerald mare’s eyes shot up towards the nearest visible street clock, noting the time. She then turned to catch the pegasus’ gaze. “Thirty-two minutes.”

Corsair double-checked the time and nodded. Her ear twitched at the sound of clanking armored plates heading their way. Both mares turned to see the three Royal Guards making their way up the road towards them. The pegasus stallion leading the trio balked at the sudden attention from both of his targets for a brief moment. Then he extended a wing towards them.

“Don’t move! You two are under arrest; by order of The Princesses!”

For some reason, the guards appeared to take genuine exception when the two mares bolted. The sound of armored hooves pounding on cobblestone was quickly drowned out by loud announcements to other nearby guards that the fugitives had been found, along with requests for reinforcements. Additional warnings to the citizenry to clear the streets and get out of the way of the charging guards were largely redundant, as most of the milling Canterlot ponies quickly scattered upon catching wind that some sort of threat existed.

There had been more than a few recent disasters in the city, after all; and so the population was quite practiced in reacting to danger these days.

While this had the advantage of meaning Corsair and Shillelagh didn’t have to bump and shove their way through a crowd, slowing them down, it had the disadvantage of meaning that the guards chasing them wouldn’t have to struggle through a throng of ponies either.

“Left!” The pegasus heard the crystal noncom yell out. Both mares pivoted almost immediately in the vocalized direction placing themselves once more in a narrow alleyway. “Door; right.” The cobalt flier’s eyes immediately locked onto the little side door of a shop. She leaped into the air, using a powerful stroke of her wings to propel herself at the side of the building on her left, using the brick surface to springboard off of into the wooden portal, splintering it easily. The crystal mare followed her inside a breath later.

A startled unicorn mare looked up from where she’d been cashing out her register, her violet eyes going wide with fear at the sight of the two intruders breaking into her store. She almost immediately dove down behind the counter, yelling out that the pair should feel free to take whatever they wanted as long as they left her unharmed. Corsair glanced around and felt that was a perfectly agreeable course of action.

“Shelly!” The pegasus flung a deep purple cloak with a matching hood at the crystal mare before nabbing a golden one for herself. Both ponies quickly donned the garments before ducking out the shop’s front door. They received a few startled looks from nearby ponies on the sidewalk as they emerged from the ‘Closed’ clothing boutique, but most were paying more attention to the sound of the yelling guards coming from the nearby alleyway.

The two now-cloaked mares elected to do the same, affecting mirrored looks of curiosity that were worn by the crowd just in time for two gold-plated guards to emerge from the alley, looking frantically in both directions. One of them opened his mouth to ask a question of the crowd, but he was cut up by a mare in a violet hooded cloak calling out to him from nearby.

“Thank Celestia! Guard, I think I saw that Corsair mare and another pony! They ran that way!” A hoof that wasn’t quite visible beneath the heavy felt fabric jabbed out to the right.

The unicorn guard’s eyes were on her for less than a second before they followed the direction she’d pointed. He cursed under his breath and called out to the earth pony mare beside him. “Let’s go! Skystreak!” A pegasus stallion burst out of the shop’s front door, looking around briefly before his eyes fell on his fellow guards. “That way!” All three galloped off in the direction indicated by the helpful witness.

Both hooded mares spared a few seconds to watch the guards run off, calling out for others to follow them as they went. They then turned and calmed trotted in the other direction. Two blocks later, they offered their stolen cloaks to a pair of unicorn mares eating dinner, who didn’t seem to know quite how to react to the act of unexpected charity.

“That went pretty well,” Shillelagh remarked. “Ready to try another round, ma’am?” The cobalt pegasus nodded and the two set off in search of another squad of guards showing off pictures to the public.

Senior Operative Nocturne was not welcome in Canterlot’s City Guard Headquarters. Nothing had been explicitly stated to the batpony along those lines, of course. That would have been highly improper. After all, he was here to liaise with them on behalf of the EIS—or so they’d been told. So, as much as the golden pegasus stallion in purple armor might have wanted to tell the operative to go and ‘buck rocks’, he did not. That didn’t stop the recently promoted Captain of the Guard’s emerald eyes from glaring daggers at him though.

It was likely the hoof-tapping, Nocturne concluded. The batpony was aware that his hind leg was tapping with fervent agitation on the slate floor as he looked over the large map of the city laid out on the massive table in the middle of the room. His eyes were darting around at the various markers set upon it. Specifically the four most recent ones. His lips were pulled down in a frown.

An earth pony mare galloped into the room and ran up to the Captain of the Guard, whispering something in his ear. The golden pegasus nodded. A moment later, he reached out a wing and placed a fifth marker on the table. It was a fair distance away from the other four.

Nocturne’s frown grew into a full-fledged scowl. He slammed a frustrated hoof on the table, knocking over a couple of the markers and shifting several others out of position. “They’re playing your guards for fools!” he snarled, glaring at the pegasus.

The commander of the city’s security force was not the slightest bit cowed by the batpony’s outburst the way that Brigadier General Maniple had been. This only served to further agitate the operative. “We’re keeping them contained to the southern quarter of the city,” he pointed out, gesturing with a wing to the region where all of the newer markers were concentrated.

“I’ve already started shifting more guards to the area. In less than an hour we’ll have enough hooves in that part of the city to cordon off everything and do a building-by-building sweep. We’ll have them in custody by morning, at the latest.”

Nocturne’s eyes went wide and he just about lunged across the table at the pegasus. “You what?! No! You idiot; that’s what she wants! So far, your guards have only reported seeing Corsair and Shillelagh; what about the other three?” A leathery wing jabbed at the cluster of markers. “This is an obvious distraction tactic!” He seethed at the guard commander.

“She’s pulling your attention away from the rest of the city so that the others will have an easier time reaching their target! You need to keep an eye out in the rest of the city for the envoy,” he insisted.

The golden flier frowned at the volume and tone used by the EIS operative, but did not refute the batpony’s assertion outright. He actually seemed to give the notion some considerable thought before ultimately nodding and passing orders back to the earth pony mare to spread the guards back out evenly through the city. “It’ll hamper our ability to corner Corsair,” he pointed out.

“She’s obviously just bait,” Nocturne snorted with a dismissive wave of his wing. His eyes went back to the map, specifically the areas that were furthest from the pegasus captain’s sightings. “She wanted your guards drawn away from the north half of the city. So that’s where they’ll be trying to sneak the envoy in…but how?”

The batpony had to give the crystal mare and her commander credit: it had been a clever plan. Place the two ‘high-value’ targets in the open and get a lot of attention to draw in the guards. At first, Nocturne hadn’t really considered the possibility that a report of Corsair’s sighting had been anything other than a stroke of luck. He’d even held out hope that he’d greatly overestimated the threat posed, despite the fact that the first sighting of the pair had occurred well within Canterlot’s walls.

By the third separate sighting in less than half an hour, all several blocks away from each other, in seemingly random directions each time, it had become clear that Corsair and Shillelagh wanted to be seen by the city’s guards. Frequently. They were attracting attention on purpose, and likely trying to provoke the Guard into doing exactly what the Captain had nearly ordered them to: moving all—or very nearly all—of their forces into one sector of the city, leaving other parts with almost no guard presence at all.

They wanted us looking in the south, Nocturne thought to himself, which means…

The batpony’s eyes to the train station…and the very nearly straight road that led from it right to the palace and the rest of the capital’s government buildings. This was by design, of course, as a courtesy to visiting foreign dignitaries, domestic provincial governors, or even the realm’s nobles; allowing them to travel largely unimpeded from the train they almost certainly arrived in the city on, right to the heart of the Equestrian government.

Normally this route would also be heavily patrolled. But, if the guards had all been relocated away, to go and cordon off Corsair on the other side of the city…

They could get the envoy to the palace within minutes of her getting off the train, the batpony realized.

“The train schedule,” the EIS operative all but snapped, briefly glancing around the room in the vain hope that he’d happen to see one posted on a nearby wall. “What trains are arriving tonight? Or did arrive in the last…” What time had it been when those two had first allowed themselves to be spotted? If they were actively trying to be seen, then surely when they’d chosen to be seen the first time had to have been deliberately chosen too. “Ten minutes or so?” He allowed for some time for the guards to have shifted positions, just as Shillelagh would surely have.

“Evening Ponyville commuter line,” the golden pegasus replied almost immediately. “Runs twice a day, sunrise and sunset.” His eyes darted to a clock on the wall. “It would have probably pulled into the station just about exactly ten minutes ago,” he confirmed.

“She was on that train,” Nocturne declared. He then turned around and strode for the door.

“I’ll send additional guards to help—” The Captain of the Guard began, but the batpony cut him off.

“Don’t bother,” the leathery-winged stallion sneered. “I’ve seen first-hoof the incompetence at play here; any guards you trained would just get in my way.” If he noticed the feather’s bristling in the other pony’s wings, he didn’t react other than to sneer; but that seemed like the operative’s default expression when talking to other ponies anyway. “I can handle one civilian on my own.”

“What about the two soldiers with her?” The pegasus challenged through grinding teeth.

A leathery wing dipped into a saddlebag and emerged again wrapped around a pair of hoofclaws. “I can handle them too…”

He left the room without another word. The golden flier continued to glare at the door for several more seconds before finally letting out an exasperated snort and turning his attention back to the map and his need to apprehend the pair of ponies currently playing grab-flank with his guards. He soon summoned another runner and—he was quite sure to the frustration of his messengers—reissued his order to divert more guards to the southern part of the city.

If the EIS operative was so sure that he could handle those three ponies without any help from the Canterlot Guard, then so be it. “...I guess I should just get my 'incompetent' ponies out of your way then, shouldn’t I, operative?”

At Nightjar’s—though neither of her companions knew her by that name—request, their group kept to the southern side of the street so that the batpony could benefit from the narrow band of shade to be found there before the sun finally set fully over the horizon. She’d been without sunbane for quite some time and so her eyes were quite sensitive to even the waning evening daylight. It didn’t help that they were walking westward. Fortunately, it wasn’t necessary for them to be continually looking in the direction of the setting sun, as they were making frequent stops to ‘admire’ the articles displayed in the windowfronts of the mostly closed stores.

“I’ll never understand fashion,” the unicorn stallion standing on the other side of their ward admitted as he frowned at what the batpony was pretty sure was a hat. It could have been a capelet. Maybe a shawl. Her eyes darted to the nearby sign to confirm they were actually looking at a shop that sold clothes, since it also bore a more-than-passing resemblance to a tea cozy. Albeit a large one.

“I don’t think you’re meant to,” the not-actually-a-pegasus said. When she noticed the look the not-a-butler gave her in response, she elaborated. “It’s like art: it’s really only for those who are ‘in’ on it. If you exist outside of the ‘fashion sphere’ you’re just supposed to sort of acknowledge that it means a lot to some ponies and that they put a lot of work into it and leave it at that.”

“It’s mostly just a conduit for money laundering.” Both ponies turned mildly shocked expressions towards the resigned well-dressed mare standing between them. “Less-than-reputable businessponies with a lot of bits of dubious origin will promote ‘high fashion’ pieces from ‘up and coming’ designers, build those designers up into a ‘brand’, and then market that brand to upper-class ponies as status symbols to inflate the prices.

“Set up a couple fashion shows to drum up apparent interest, hold a few auctions where proxies that are actually using their bits are doing the bidding...then, bam: a mountain of bits with a paper trail appears in their accounts where only dirty bits had previously been.

"You see the same thing with paintings and sculptures and stuff too."

The flanking mare and stallion exchanged looks. “...Well, somepony’s being uncharacteristically cynical tonight,” Nightjar quipped, smirking at the teal unicorn next to her.

“I’ve had a rough week.” The mare paused. Then her shoulders visibly sagged. “Oh, Celestia; it’s only been a week…” She let out a heavy sigh and started to turn and make her way further down the sidewalk, only for Flashover to hold out a hoof to stop her.

“Not yet,” he said, glancing at a clock sitting atop a post at a nearby intersection. “Give it another three minutes.”

Autumn Brisk huffed in annoyance but turned back to the window to resume her apparent contemplation of the displayed items. Meanwhile, the unicorn stallion continued to pan his gaze around them, looking over the street that was far more empty now than it had been when they’d gotten off the train ten minutes ago. No explicit warnings had been made by the city’s guards, but that hadn’t stopped word from getting around that two ‘bad ponies’ had been spotted in the city. Nopony knew what those ponies were supposed to have done or why they were wanted, but the obvious conclusion was that there had to be a very good reason for conducting such an obvious marehunt in the nation’s capital.

Thus, many of Canterlot’s more skittish citizens had decided that it was wiser to retire early and spend the evening safe at home. This made the quite well-dressed trio stand out all the more on the mostly deserted avenue. The teal unicorn mare, especially, drew a fair number of looks from the scant remaining passersby. Judging from the expressions of those ponies though, Nightjar deduced their focus had more to do with the unicorn’s attire than anything else.

This dress might be too good, the batpony mused, a hint of a frown touching her lips. Nopony is actually looking at Autumn...

“Alright, we can move now,” Flashover announced in a low tone to the mares. The trio of ponies turned and resumed their slow meander towards the palace, stopping again a couple blocks further down to ogle another storefront; this one a jeweler.

“That reminds me: I need to get something for my mom for Mare’s Day,” the orange unicorn said aloud, eyeing a pair of ruby earrings. Then his eyes darted beneath them to the advertised price and he grimaced. “Not here though.” There was a brief moment of thought and he glanced at his saddlebag. "Actually, I think I still have a credit voucher left…”

Autumn Brisk made a choking sound before turning a shocked look upon the stallion. “You can’t be serious?! We’re in enough debt as it is!” She at least had the good sense to keep her objection to a low hiss.

Flashover frowned at her. “What ‘debt’? Cravat told us to ‘go nuts’!” He pointed a hoof at the earrings. “And paying that much for earrings is absolutely ‘nuts’! Besides, it’s his mother’s money, not his.”

“That makes it worse!” The teal mare squeaked.

“Quiet.” The batpony sternly, but softly, said through gritted teeth. “We’re being watched.” The other two ponies went immediately silent. Flashover feigned a cough into his sleeve, allowing him to turn his head to see if he could spot their observer. Nightjar noticed the movement and gave a subtle shake of her head, as though she was unimpressed with the jewelry they were looking at. “Roof. Behind us. Somepony landed there.”

She noticed Flashover’s dubious look and allowed herself a slight smile. “Batpony hearing,” she announced, flicking an ear. “Let’s move along; see if they follow.”

The three turned and resumed their trot towards the palace. The stallion fell back, trailing the teal unicorn so that he could share a whisper with the flier. “If they’re a batpony too, could they hear what we’re saying?”

“Every word,” she replied in an equally hushed tone as she walked at his side. “Even this.”

“So then they’d know who we really are,” the orange stallion concluded.

“Almost certainly.”

The pair briefly exchanged looks. Then the unicorn hastened his stride to catch up to Autumn Brisk. “We might be made; no more stopping,” he whispered in the mare’s ear. The teal pony missed a step and stumbled, but hurriedly played it off as a trip over a crack in the sidewalk with a muttered curse about the ‘downward trend of the capital’s infrastructure’. However, when she was back at a trot again, the tension in her gait was quite noticeable.

“You’ll be alright,” Flashover assured her. “We’ve got this.”

“I hope you’re—”

Whatever else the teal mare was about to say dropped away in a gasp as the last of the sunlight amid the burnt orange sky abruptly vanished, plunging them into near darkness, save for the glow of the magically powered streetlights. A couple heartbeats later, some small margin of celestial illumination returned to supplement that provided by the street lamps as a silvery orb rose in the sun’s place.

Realizing that they’d just experienced the transition of day into night, Autumn Brisk let out the breath that had lodged itself in her chest and tried to swallow back the lump of anxiety in her throat. She focused on breathing for a few moments longer while she others gave her time.

Then the soft golden glow of the streetlights along the main avenue all winked out at once, plunging the wide, but now completely deserted, thoroughfare into near total darkness. Except for the light of moon low on the horizon.

The three ponies exchanged looks.

"That's weir—aah!" Autumn brisk found her words interrupted again. Only, this time, it was by shock and pain as a set of teeth clamped down on her tail and yanked her back hard enough to send the unicorn flailing onto her rump.

She had been about to ask the batpony what she’d been thinking when her eyes caught sight of the gleaming steel blades swinging up through the air right where her throat had been only a moment ago. Her view was then obstructed by an orange form clad in a black suit as the unicorn private interposed himself between her…

…and the grinning visage of a batpony stallion stepping out fully from behind a sandwich board that had been left outside of a café.

The new arrival didn’t really seem to acknowledge the disguised cavalry pony though. He wasn’t looking at Autumn Brisk either. His amber eyes were locked on the 'pegasus'. The stallion’s grin only seemed to grow wider. “Operative Nightjar! What a surprise to see you again…alive.” The smile fell away in an instant, replaced by a sneer.

“Those fucking mercs really couldn’t be counted on to kill anypony, could they?”

Flashover snorted, his hooves grinding into the pavement. He’d yet to be presented with the opportunity to confront any of those who’d been involved with the slaughter of his unit. Those behind the murder of his friends. Before Nightjar could warn him off, the orange stallion leaped at the other batpony…

…Only to find himself sailing through empty air. Then there was a cry of pain and he staggered off to the side, favoring a flank that was visibly bleeding through two new tears in his expensive suit’s jacket. Still, the batpony wasn’t even looking at him, maintaining his focus on the ‘pegasus’ mare instead. He tapped a forehoof idly on the sidewalk, extended hoofclaws dripping with fresh blood.

“You did pretty good to make it this far, I’ll give you that,” he said through a mirthless chuckle. “But it’s over.

“Give up. Come quietly. Maybe you can even reach some sort of plea deal with the courts.”

“You won’t let us in front of a judge,” Nightjar snorted. "You wouldn't even let us make it to a cell, would you?"

“You’re right; I won’t,” was the other batpony’s unabashed admission. “But at least now I’ll be able to honestly report that I offered you the chance to surrender…” The grin which showed far too many sharp teeth was back. “...when I deliver your corpses!”

He leaped. A mare screamed.

Author's Note

Thank you so much for reading! As always, a thumbs up and comment are always greatly appreciated

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